99
by comatose panda
Summary: if this be a misery with no end; as long as our hands remain intertwined, gladly, i will stay in this hell.


Disclaimer: lol nope, I don't own Baccano! and all it's genius characters.

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**titled** 99

**source** Baccano! by Ryohgo Narita

**pairing(s)** too many to count

**rated** k+ (some content may not be suitable for young children. may contain mild coarse language)

**warnings** mild swearing, extreme god complexes, severe bias, mentions of blood and death, inadequate grammar. and just puttin' it out there, **a lack of caps**.

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**99**

_if this be a misery with no end; as long as our hands remain intertwined, gladly, i will stay in this hell._

_**1.9**_

roughly one out of nine humans die very second.

each cause of death is different from the next. perhaps one was unfortunate enough to be hit by a drunk driver. another, dying painfully slow of pancreatic cancer, all the while begging some half-formed god to deliver them from their misery.

firo prochainezo will never know that feeling. never know what it would be like to be detached from the physical body. sure, he had experienced pain—that instantaneous feeling of agony as it tears through his body, before the serum—that golden liquid start to work its magic, and repair him until he was whole and undamaged again.

"dying? why would I ever think about that?"

yes, he would never know.

**_2.9_**

"ennis, I want you to go fetch mr. barnes. make sure the serum is complete, and then get rid of him," szilard commands his creation in his raspy voice of a 300 year old. ennis makes no comment; only agrees like the obedient servant she is.

fate is strange that way. it twists the paths of humans and non-humans, having them cross, overlap, veer away from each other, or never meet. who ever knew an errand to buy a hat, and the order to kill was able to bring them face to face in the majestic city of new york.

two out of nine bottles of that precious beverage were saved. two out of nine were gone as ennis came upon the unfortunate man. she doesn't blink an eye as she hauls barnes into that hell hole where a fate worse than death awaits him.

after all, orders are orders.

_**3.9**_

three out of nine, and 33 1/3% of the time, czeslaw meyer likes to think that he's part of a family. that he belongs somewhere for once. he tells everyone he doesn't care, that he could kill them all without conscience. that he can keep telling himself he didn't have one. but when push comes to shove, it never occurs to him until then, ennis is not fermet.

and at times, he can truthfully say that those memories from 200 years past don't haunt him every night that ennis will love him forever that he is really safe.

(that he can count himself as one out of his family of three. not that he'll ever say anything to firo)

so czeslaw promises himself this in the spring.

he won't mistake anyone for fermet. he won't be that paranoid shallow child he was. he won't rest until everyone is eating out of the palm of his hand. he isn't fermet. (no one is fermet.) no. he would be even better than that sadistic bastard.

_**4.9**_

four out of nine (roughly one half) of the time they ask chane why she willingly gave up her voice for her father—if he can even be called that. chane doesn't reply. fools can never—will never understand. it was like asking for the mountains to move on their own accord, dip their slopes in the ocean, and stir up a tropical hurricane along the freeway. it was like trying to find jesus in a southern baptist's seven-bedroom-six-bath limousine. huey was her father her savior her fallen angel who lives forever. everything she had was not hers but only used to serve him. because that's what love is.

huey does not recognize this. does not recall recognizing her utter devotion stemming from their so-called bond. he only knows how to point fingers how to use others how to hold them at arm's length and view the world and its inhabitants as his own personal playground. and who could argue with that brilliantly twisted logic? because huey can live forever because he's invincible because he has no weaknesses because he can't love back.

and yet, even if chane knows all this, always knew all this, she does nothing but rests her head in huey's cold lap as his pale, skeletal fingers stained with invisible blood ever so gently thread through her midnight hair.

briefly, she wonders if this can be considered a weakness.

_**5.9**_

five out of nine times maiza will catch himself dreaming of the past of 1711 of the advenna avis of gretto. catch himself wondering 'what if?' what if szilard hadn't mistaken what if ronnie didn't come what if he hadn't drank the elixir? but he also thinks that, regardless of the time or day or the evening or the jazz songs in the sky and the ambrosial scent of cigarette smoke and alcohol in the air, regardless of that empty space inside him where a heart should be—

was that why he refused to open his eyes?

there is something else in here. there is something important that neither of them have truly missed. it hangs around sometimes, stares blankly at the cleverly hidden speakeasies, dangles its feet over the banks of the harlem, birthplace of the harlem jazz.

it's present, here and now.

"that boy, he reminds me of gretto," sylvie had said. "he's in there somewhere...our gretto."

_**6.9**_

ladd shows up at her door some time between the last light in the street burns out and the birdsong in the morning, between faded colors on the lapels of his beautiful wedding jacket and messy stumbling by the side-door of his car. it's quiet. it's quiet like the world has always been quiet, quiet like chicago can never be quiet in the dregs of the night, quiet like you can hear heartbeats and shivers crawling across the air. there aren't a lot of birds close to where lua lives. most of them choose to fly high, closer to the sun and the stars, gliding over the horizon and the tilt of the oceans.

"he's dead." ladd says, smearing that red red red liquid over his bright bright bright sapphire eyes.

"oh," lua says, and she's not sure what else she can say.

six out of nine and 66 2/3% of the time, lua feels insignificant against the grandeur within ladd russo's plan. where tangled in its intricate web, she will eventually drown into the purpling crimson splashes on that snowy silk. where butterflies with torn wings flutter hypnotically into the beckoning sun. where she knows she will find him there, waiting as promised—at the end of the world.

"can i come in?" ladd asks.

"i don't know," lua says quietly, "can you really come in?"

"yes," he says without thinking, "yes, I can."

when ladd russo leaves his jacket by the door, lua klein lays her heart down next to it.

_**7.9**_

Seven times out of twelve, they will tell you that the hellfire had flown in with those two. the daily days was the first who caught wind, followed by the flood of american journalists holing up in the infinite nooks and crannies of new york. they filled their dials at the brooklyn bridge, cheap ink and polaroid film, and proceeded to pump as much gasoline as they could into the last burning building.

"they stole a door. who would steal a goddamn door?"

so there were robberies. so there were robberies and murder. so there was robberies, murder, and two strangers in foreign masks skirting the dusty concrete curb, snatching bulging bags of money from shiny mafia cars, while the crisp emerald slips fly out behind them, coloring their path in the shade of the world.

and it wasn't like isaac dian had specifically called for this to happen. he wanted to steal time, so he took those watches; if that door was gone, then no one can enter the museum, right? and if the genoard fortune were to disappear, then they would stop fighting over it. it made complete sense. (he had to admit, he was brilliant.)

so why the big fuss?

miria harvent couldn't have agreed more. isaac is always there, an unstoppable force of nature. his genius was what fed them, kept them going, driving the duo into the next century as time slowed and sped up, fluctuating and bending around the two, encased in their own little world.

_**8.9**_

"this is a pretty goddamn amazing train," claire stanfield (or perhaps vino or perhaps felix walken or perhaps the rail tracer) tells tony amidst the clattering music of loose gears and wafts of ghostly coal infused steam.

(a demon train, the old woman hisses, bad things are going to happen. but the flying pussyfoot soon departs, taking those who settled deep in its belly far far away.)

and eight times out of nine he is right. because the world revolves around the man who called himself claire stanfield. that it is specifically created for him and only him. because he cannot die because the world is only a dream because all people just exists in his imagination, and therefore, if he were to die there he would just wake up—

because he is God.

his world is perfect eight out of nine times. because everything is real and the whole world is fake. the universe is just a dream and he could feel the cool wetness of blood encase him as a second skin. he isn't claire stanfield he isn't vino he isn't felix walken.

(he is the rail tracer. and chane laforet is definitely real.)

and here is where he will meet her, standing at the dusty curb. here is the flying train, do you see it? it's setting off, departing for the world.

_**9.9**_

they might say firo prochainezo sees the world through rose-tinted glasses (though he is vain enough to admit that they would look mighty fine on him) .

but roseate lenses drench life in all kinds of fantastical shades of crimson, altering semblances of cerise passion copper lust scarlet desire claret love and sanguine rage, teasing them into dizzying subtle hues, tilting the ground under his feet whenever she was near.

the pale pink of the last touch of dawn reaches out to embrace the silver notes sliding dreamily from the fast awakening reality as sharp edges are blurred into obliviousness and drops of rain burn like acid on sensitive hearts.

through fuchsia trees that brush argentite clouds, where birds soar high and sing from a mile across the skies, where the golden summer rain fall like god's tears, where envisioned precious gems line the streets like cobblestones, flashing their hidden beauty under the ivory sun, Firo asks Ennis to marry him.

wait, she says, wait for me, and you won't be disappointed.

so even if 70 years past, even if the millennium ends, he believes her.

and nine times out of nine, Firo will wait.

_we run blind in the pursuit of happiness. if one day, i wander too far and cannot come back...please remove all those memories from me, so that i will always be by your side._

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**CP: **Ok, confession time. I'm not all that crazy about Baccano! though I will admit the some of the characters are genius, and don't even get me started on the Goldern Twenties. Who can not love mafias and speakeasies and moonshining? But I'm not an anime fan though I do admire the art. This was a birthday fic who proclaimed Baccano! to be her favorite anime of all time so yeah. Hope you enjoyed it as much as her. ^_^


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